Rev Chris Roth

Matthew 9:35-10:23 There is a quote by Teresa of Avila, who was a 16th century Spanish mystic. She said,  “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”  In the Ascension, Christ brought his body into the dimension of heaven. The Church- Christians- followers of the way of Jesus- are now the Body of Christ in the world. You and I, if we consider ourselves followers of Jesus, are now the body of Christ in the world. What does that actually mean? It means that we go out to do as Christ would do. When Jesus saw how much work had to be done- how big the harvest was- he gave his disciples  “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, a...

Genesis 1:1-2:4 Psalm 8 2 Corinthians 13:11-14 Matthew 28:16-20 I'm not going to preach the sermon the Lectionary wants me to preach today. It is Trinity Sunday, so I could talk about God at creation and the Spirit of God hovering over the water. I could talk about God speaking in a plural voice- "us", "our". We could go to Collossians 1 or John 1 and read about Jesus being one with the creator in a way that he is the creator-  "[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Col 1:15-17) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him w...

Numbers 11:24-30   Acts 2:1-21  John 20:19-23 Pentecost was a Jewish festival that had two facets to it. First, it was the second of three harvest festivals. It was the completion of the grain harvest. It is also sometimes called the Feast of Weeks because it took place seven weeks or 50 days after the Passover (Pentekostos means ‘fiftieth’). It eventual began to have a second facet and was observed as the anniversary of the giving of the Law and the establishment of the covenant at Mount Sinai, which was believed to have happened 50 days after the Exodus from Egypt. People would gather at the temple to celebrate and make offerings. Jerusalem would have been filled with people from all over since the temple was the only place you were allowed to make sacrifices. It would have also been a time to renew the covenant (maybe in a similar way to how we renew our baptismal vows). So no doubt the story was told about how the first covenant was made between God and...

Acts 1:1-11 Ephesians 1:15-23  Luke 24:44-53 The Ascension of Jesus was recorded twice by St. Luke, both at the end of the Gospel of Luke and at the beginning of Acts. One could imagine him recording it in one or the other, but why both? The ascension also occurs in our creeds. So obviously it is a big deal. But it is still mysterious. we don't talk about it a lot in our churches and it wasn't actually unpacked much until the time of St. Augustine.   The best image I've been able to come up to help me understand the Ascension has been a cell phone. The cell phone is an amazing invention. I can speak or whisper into a little microphone in my cell phone and it will transform my speech into a radio wave that can be sent to my brother’s phone in Vancouver, or just about anywhere else on the planet. When my brother lived in London, England, I could speak to him as if he was standing right in front of me. But there is a strange transformation that has to happen to m...

John 14:1-14 We live in a world full of so much diversity- many cultures and many religions- isn’t it arrogant for Christians to claim the only way to God? It’s offensive to say you know spiritual truth and imply that others don’t.  We live in a world with an incredible amount of diversity among human beings. There are many different cultures and religions.  As globalization has its effect on us we bump into more of the varieties of cultures and religions in a way we wouldn’t have even 50 years ago.   In the midst of this incredible diversity of cultures Christians claim to know the exclusive route to God.  Paul in Romans 5:19 says, “For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” It is Jesus who fixed what was broken about the world. It is his medicine that was injected into the sick world that is bringing about a cure. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, and t...

Acts 2:42-47 We are in the season after Easter and so we are living in the glow of the resurrection of Jesus, and watching his early disciples live in that glow as well. In some churches today is called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because there is a theme of shepherding in our readings. Today, I would like to look at the reading from the Acts of the Apostles. By this point in our reading there is no longer any doubt about Jesus being the messiah. This company of disciples knows who Jesus is. They are on the other side of the resurrection and have spent time with Jesus after he came back from the dead. Our reading from Acts tells us how to live as a people with a resurrected Lord shepherding us. What should the Christian community be like? We read in Acts that, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42). These are marks that were essential and basic to the early church, and they are also essential and...

John 20:1-18 It's hard for us to understand how low the disciples must have felt after Jesus' Crucifixion. Just a week earlier Jesus was riding into Jerusalem. He came as their king. The people were singing and shouting, “Hosanna!”, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”, “Blessed is the king of Israel!”. Those who had been with Jesus for the last 3 years had been hoping and waiting for this day. Finally, Jesus will take his place as the people's true king- the Messiah. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? What was it like to be with Jesus entering the city, believing that this will change everything? Justice. Peace. A good King. No wonder they were waving branches and singing and laying their coats down on the road. Suddenly things change. Jesus is betrayed. He is arrested. His followers are frightened. Jesus stands before the authorities under the weight of heavy accusations. Suddenly the man they had put their hopes in is be...